glenn beck

On the 'Glenn Beck Program' (weekdays, 5 PM ET on Fox News) Beck was comparing the poor people of 2010 -- almost all of who have televisions, cars and cell phones -- to the poor people of the Great Depression, who had no such luxuries.

While doing so, he produced some rare depression-era color photographs of poor folks, and then became quite excited about the woman in the photos.

"Look at how proud she is," Beck said, pointing to a shot of a man and a woman. "Look at her confidence, look at the way she's standing, look at her face. She's proud, she's strong."

Then Beck put up a picture of the same woman at the dinner table with her family. "Look at her," he gushed. "This is poverty."

Glenn Beck isn't always so sympathetic to the impoverished. But in light of his enthusiasm for the ladies of the Great Depression, maybe he'd be more in tune with the plight of the current poor if they started wearing beat up old house dresses or the always-striking barrel-and-suspender ensemble.

Dan Savage is a syndicated advice columnist who writes about sex and relationships. This past year, when an Indiana teenager committed suicide, Mr. Savage decided to take action. Fifteen-year-old Billy Lucas killed himself after classmates taunted him for being gay. At around this same time, many other gay teens committed suicide due to bullying.

Following these deaths, Dan realized that most gay teens in America had no one to talk to. He felt that if he had met Billy Lucas "for just five minutes," he could have helped him.

Savage wished he could have told Billy that things would "get better." This thought inspired Savage to start the "It Gets Better Project." On 'The Colbert Report' (weeknights, 11:30PM ET on Comedy Central), Dan explained the project -- and asked Stephen if he would join it.

"What better way to keep people sheep than making sure -- and I'm part of this -- making sure that people get their news from a comedian?" Beck said.

"At least I'm giving it in context. I'm trying to make the news entertaining to bring people in. But Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, that's not news. That's a monologue. That's jokes."

Now that Beck has made this connection between comedy and sheep-like behavior, we can't help but wonder if he might start peppering his Goldline commercials with witty one-liners and knock-knock jokes.

Why is Glenn Beck so obsessed with George Soros? He recently called him the "Puppet Master" and spent three full episodes detailing a conspiracy that Soros is creating a far-left shadow government. Jon Stewart mocked the assertion on 'The Daily Show' (weeknights, 11PM ET on COM). He turned the tables on the conservative commentator with "Glenn Beck: The Manchurian Lunatic," a reference to the book/film about a brainwashed political assassin.

Surrounded by hanging puppets, Stewart said creepily, "Once I realized that Glenn Beck is George Soros' puppet, suddenly everything started to make sense ... But don't take my word for it, take Glenn Beck's words."

Stewart rolled a montage of Beck quotes, including, "I am stirring up fear in the country ... I am not an expert. I'm stupid. I don't know anything [and] I'm a madman." Yeah, in that context (or lack thereof), these words do sound like the musings of a brainwashed political puppet like the Manchurian Candidate.

After exposing George Soros as the nefarious "Puppet Master" last week, Glenn Beck spent three full episodes of his eponymous cable news program detailing how Soros and his billions were behind a shadow government which aims to create a new, far-left world order.

Beck also discussed some of the details of Soros's grand scheme on 'The O'Reilly Factor,' (weekdays, 8PM ET on Fox News) but he wasn't able to convince O'Reilly that Soros is as dangerous as Beck thinks he is.

"I don't see (Soros) as the power as you see him," O'Reilly told Beck. " . . .The shadow government, I don't know where they live. If you tell me where they live I'll go to their house. Do they have a house?" O'Reilly mocked.

We also aren't buying Beck's George Soros conspiracy theories. In fact, after watching Beck present his case against the financier, we couldn't help but conclude that the only two places in which Soros is really as powerful as Beck claims him to be are the minds of Glenn Beck and George Soros.

For the past week, Glenn Beck has been talking up the "Puppet Master," the nefarious, but unnamed person Beck believes is pulling all the strings on the political system from behind the scenes.

On the 'Glenn Beck Program' (weekdays, 5 PM ET on Fox News) Tuesday, he revealed the Puppet Master to be George Soros, the financier and contributor to progressive causes that Beck has long painted as a bogeyman on his show.

Beck also spoke about a strange meeting between a George Soros representative and one of his producers, in which Soros' associate presented Beck's producer with a DVD of the movie "A Face in the Crowd" to give to Beck.

The 1957 film is about a drunk, Lonesome Rhodes, who transformers himself into a famous talk show host before being revealed as a liar and fraud. (Beck has admitted to struggling with alcoholism before his career took off.) The movie ends with Rhodes screaming from a balcony and contemplating suicide.

"Mr. Soros, I'm not going to jump, I'm also not Lonesome Rhodes, but I appreciate that you think about me," was Beck's message to Soros.

Beck then added that Soros is always "welcome on this program to spend on hour with me."

Given Beck's love of unusual props, and Soros' apparent tendency toward symbolic gifts, it would be an interesting hour indeed.

Bill Maher was apparently not a fan of the Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear. On Real Time With Bill Maher (Friday, 8 PM ET on HBO), Maher criticized the event, which was put on by Comedy Central personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, for its lack of purpose.

"If you are going to have a rally in which hundreds of thousands of people show up, you might as well make it about something," Maher said.

The goal was to share political views in an inoffensive manner. Moderation was the ideal; Stewart showed video clips of media figures (such as Mr. Beck) who supposedly used polarizing speech.

Since the event was hosted by comedians, the whole thing was a joke -- or was it? A bunch of celebs attended, including Ozzy Osbourne, Kid Rock, and Sheryl Crow. But Stewart stopped the music and jokes to deliver this message: "I thought we might have a moment ... for some sincerity. ... I can't control what people think this was. I can only tell you my intentions."

"I want to take a moment to give a sincere thank you to George Soros and the folks at Media Matters," Beck said. "In 2004, when we got our first Media Matters alert, we were only on about 40 stations on radio and I wasn't even on TV yet," Beck explained.

Then the Beckster detailed how Media Matters has mentioned him approximately 50,000 times since 2004, and how now he is on over 400 radio stations, has a popular cable show, and is a best selling author.

If one were to argue that Media Matters helped push Glenn Beck to greatness, one would also have to concede that Glenn Beck has done wonders for Media Matters -- which is now absorbing huge gifts from philanthropists.

In fact, Beck and Media Matters should just stop pretending to be enemies and run off somewhere to have millions of babies together.

On 'The Glenn Beck program' (Weekdays, 5 PM ET on Fox News) Beck proved his versatility as a broadcaster by playing both the male and the female character in a meandering metaphor he was sharing about a married couple that goes gambling in Las Vegas. Beck was trying to use the story to explain how the U.S. government encourages Americans to spend money they don't have, but between his lady voice and the myriad twists and turns his tale took, his message may have gotten lost in the wash.

"Let's say you and your wife are going to Vegas. And your wife is like . . ." Beck said, normally, before switching gears to a high pitched, feminine voice.

"Honey, I don't think this is a good idea, we're really broke," Beck squealed. The dialogue between the wife and the husband continued for over a minute, and sadly ended with them $150,000 in debt.

Some have said that Beck's ultimate goal is to be the next Oprah, not the next Bill O'Reilly. So maybe we'll be hearing more and more of his daytime TV friendly lady voice in the future.

"I don't know how the fireman stood there and didn't do it, but they had to. "Beck said. "Look, this is community . . . they didn't have any fire coverage before. Everybody's house burned down. They said, we need fireman, how are we going to do it -- everybody paid $75."

O'Reilly disagreed, saying the fireman should have put out the flames, and then charged the delinquent homeowner the full cost of doing so.

"You know what you're proposing?" Beck asked O'Reilly. "Obamacare." Beck then said, claiming that under the health care bill congress passed last year, people will be able to hold off on buying insurance until they get a serious disease like cancer.

As usual, we recognize Beck for his uncanny ability to tie every news story to his distaste for Barack Obama.

Although, in this case, it needs to be mentioned that the only reason this story received national attention in the first place is because Keith Olbermann, a cable news talker on the other side of political spectrum, thought it helped him score a point against the Tea Party.

According to the AP and other sources, the 'One Nation' rally that Ed Schultz promoted did not draw as many people as Glenn Beck's 'Restoring Honor' rally.

Schultz had previously stated that the crowd at Beck's rally was no big deal and predicted that he could organize a rally that drew as many. Faced with the evidence otherwise, Schultz turned to some sketchy math.

On 'The Ed Show' (weekdays, 6PM ET on MSNBC) Schultz proclaimed organizers of the 'One Nation' rally had estimated a crowd of 175,000 people. Then he compared that number to the average of two independent media estimates of Beck's rally, one at 87,000 people and another at 300,000 people.

"Pretty much, would you say that the size of the crowd is pretty much the same? I would," Schultz argued.

What Schultz didn't say is organizers always give an extremely high estimate of crowd size, as compared to any independent media organization. In fact, Beck estimated his crowd at 500,000.

The truth is, crowd sizes at rallies are notoriously hard to estimate. Schultz should have just told his audience that, rather than insult them with an embarrassingly transparent apples-and-oranges manipulation of numbers.

A new poll conducted by Politico and George Washington University has rated Bill O'Reilly the pundit who likely voters say has the most positive impact on the nation's political debate. When O'Reilly had Glenn Beck -- who rated second most positive -- on 'The O'Reilly Factor' (weekdays, 8 PM ET on Fox News), the venerable pundit was quick to bring up this survey, and asked Beck to interpret it.

"I beg of you to get down on your knees and pray . . . for the safety of the president," Beck implored his audience. "You can say whatever you want about me, but my family and I pray every night for the safety of our president."

And why is Beck so concerned that someone would try to assassinate the Commander-in-Chief? Beck pointed behind him to photos of liberal individuals and organizations that he says are now aligned with the president, but may, in Beck's view, try to get rid of Obama if he doesn't continue to kowtow to their "radical" agenda.

We're calling BS on Beck praying for the safety of Obama. Not because we think he is heartless, or wishes the president ill. But because there is no way Beck actually believes this latest conspiracy-tinged theory he has presented.